Sunday, September 18, 2011

LOS ANGELES (AP) — “Modern Family” won the first four Emmy Awards on Sunday, capturing best supporting comedy actress, best supporting comedy actor, best writing for a comedy and best direction for a comedy series.Julie Bowen was named best supporting actress in a comedy series and Ty Burrell, who plays her husband on the show, won as best actor in the category. Jim Parsons of “The Big Bang Theory” won as best lead actor in a comedy.The awards began on a controversial note when it was revealed that a taped comedy routine by Alec Baldwin for the show was cut from the telecast because it contained a joke about the News Corp. phone hacking scandal.The actor was to be part of an opening video for Sunday night’s ceremony airing on Fox, a News Corp.-owned network. But he tweeted before the awards that the network had killed his joke about the hacking scandal in Britain involving the now-closed News of the World tabloid.Fox said it believed the joke was inappropriate to make light of an issue being taken very seriously by the company.